The Analysis of Mind. Bertrand Russell

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       Bertrand Russell

      The Analysis of Mind

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664134899

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

       LECTURE I. RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS"

       LECTURE II. INSTINCT AND HABIT

       LECTURE III. DESIRE AND FEELING

       LECTURE IV. INFLUENCE OF PAST HISTORY ON PRESENT OCCURRENCES IN LIVING

       LECTURE V. PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSICAL CAUSAL LAWS

       LECTURE VI. INTROSPECTION

       LECTURE VII. THE DEFINITION OF PERCEPTION

       LECTURE VIII. SENSATIONS AND IMAGES

       LECTURE IX. MEMORY

       LECTURE X. WORDS AND MEANING

       LECTURE XI. GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT

       LECTURE XII. BELIEF

       LECTURE XIII. TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD

       LECTURE XIV. EMOTIONS AND WILL

       LECTURE XV. CHARACTERISTICS OF MENTAL PHENOMENA

PREFACE

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      This book has grown out of an attempt to harmonize two different tendencies, one in psychology, the other in physics, with both of which I find myself in sympathy, although at first sight they might seem inconsistent. On the one hand, many psychologists, especially those of the behaviourist school, tend to adopt what is essentially a materialistic position, as a matter of method if not of metaphysics. They make psychology increasingly dependent on physiology and external observation, and tend to think of matter as something much more solid and indubitable than mind. Meanwhile the physicists, especially Einstein and other exponents of the theory of relativity, have been making "matter" less and less material. Their world consists of "events," from which "matter" is derived by a logical construction. Whoever reads, for example, Professor Eddington's "Space, Time and Gravitation" (Cambridge University Press, 1920), will see that an old-fashioned materialism can receive no support from modern physics. I think that what has permanent value in the outlook of the behaviourists is the feeling that physics is the most fundamental science at present in existence. But this position cannot be called materialistic, if, as seems to be the case, physics does not assume the existence of matter.

      The view that seems to me to reconcile the materialistic tendency of psychology with the anti-materialistic tendency of physics is the view of William James and the American new realists, according to which the "stuff" of the world is neither mental nor material, but a "neutral stuff," out of which both are constructed. I have endeavoured in this work to develop this view in some detail as regards the phenomena with which psychology is concerned.

      My thanks are due to Professor John B. Watson and to Dr. T. P. Nunn for reading my MSS. at an early stage and helping me with many valuable suggestions; also to Mr. A. Wohlgemuth for much very useful information as regards important literature. I have also to acknowledge the help of the editor of this Library of Philosophy, Professor Muirhead, for several suggestions by which I have profited.

      The work has been given in the form of lectures both in London and Peking, and one lecture, that on Desire, has been published in the Athenaeum.

      There are a few allusions to China in this book, all of which were written before I had been in China, and are not intended to be taken by the reader as geographically accurate. I have used "China" merely as a synonym for "a distant country," when I wanted illustrations of unfamiliar things.

      Peking, January 1921.

THE ANALYSIS OF MIND

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LECTURE I. RECENT CRITICISMS OF "CONSCIOUSNESS"

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      There are certain occurrences which we are in the habit of calling "mental." Among these we may take as typical BELIEVING and DESIRING. The exact definition of the word "mental" will, I hope, emerge as the lectures proceed; for the present, I shall mean by it whatever occurrences would commonly be called mental.

      I wish in these lectures to analyse as fully as I can what it is that really takes place when we, e.g. believe or desire. In this first lecture I shall be concerned to refute a theory which is widely held, and which I formerly held myself: the theory that the essence of everything mental is a certain quite peculiar something called "consciousness," conceived either as a relation to objects, or as a pervading quality of psychical phenomena.

      The reasons which I shall give against this theory will be mainly derived from previous authors. There are two sorts of reasons, which will divide my lecture into two parts:

      (1) Direct reasons, derived from analysis and its difficulties;

      (2) Indirect reasons, derived from observation of animals (comparative psychology) and of the insane and hysterical (psycho-analysis).

      Few things are more firmly established in popular philosophy than the distinction between mind and matter. Those who are not professional metaphysicians are willing to confess that they do not know what mind actually is, or how matter is constituted; but they remain convinced that there is an impassable gulf between the two, and that both belong to what actually exists in the world. Philosophers, on the other hand, have maintained often that matter is a mere fiction imagined by mind, and sometimes that mind is a mere property of a certain kind of matter. Those who maintain that mind is the reality and matter an evil dream are called "idealists"—a word which